


Accidental Feline Greeting

by Tassledown



Series: Purim Gifts: Accidental Feline Mischief [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 1, Gen, I Think Its Cute, animagus fic, but it's angry-cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 00:56:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18110057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassledown/pseuds/Tassledown
Summary: Having an Animagus form is useful for relaxing after a long day of work sometimes, but when her instincts get away from her, Minerva greets a person she was very much in no mood to see that day.





	Accidental Feline Greeting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thesometimeswarrior](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesometimeswarrior/gifts).



> It wasn’t, initially, spying. It just so happened that Minerva was wandering the halls after hours to keep an eye on things in such tense times as had befallen the castle, and came across Umbridge who just so happened to have a soft spot for cats and apparently had not looked too closely at her face or the legal register of animagi. 

The result of this encounter was an exceptionally appalling shift in Umbridge’s face. The fur on her back wanted to rise; her feline brain desired very strongly to become as big and threatening as she could, but she reined in the instincts with decades of practice and merely sunk down to the floor as Umbridge reached down towards her.

That Umbridge did not pick her up came as a shock. She patted her lightly on the head and cooed, then beckoned her forward with a kissy noise and a hand delving into a pocket to retrieve what turned out to be dried fish.

“Here you go my dear,” Umbridge twittered. “Do you want a treat? You are very pretty. You’ve been following me all the way up a whole floor; were you hungry?” 

She had not, in fact, been following her, although belatedly Minerva admitted to herself she had been, but purely out of a paranoid desire not to let the woman out of her sight. She refused the treats as well but this entailed staying still and convincing her she was perversely enjoying being stroked. 

“Well. I’m glad someone is keeping you fed at least.” Umbridge patted her head briefly again and then scratched under her chin; Minerva was convinced that she would see the spectacle markings, read her face as unusual – as an animagi – but Umbridge’s face did not change from the peculiarly soft affection she apparently felt for animals and spared none of for other human beings. “Take care, my dear.”

Her hand retreated and Umbridge stood and walked away. Minerva slunk into the nearest shadow and furiously began to clean her fur, convinced she could smell the woman on her still. (An impulse that, most likely, was correct to her feline form’s senses, whether she could remember or pin down the sensation once she returned to her own two feet.) 

After a minute of furious tongue-bathing, Minerva’s good sense reasserted itself and reminded her that she has a perfectly good bath with a soap that smelled wonderfully of pine and sandalwood and nothing like that awful woman and she took herself off at a rapid trot back to her own room.


End file.
